Banned Book- Invisible Man

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Transcript of Banned Book- Invisible Man

Invisible Man ... by Ralph Ellison Presentation by... Cielle Ritter-Finch Invisible Man was written in the early 1950's, when segregation what still widely used in schools. The story is told from the perspective of a young man from the South, and follows his journey to the North. Both the Prologue and Epilogue are the nameless main character's reflections on his in the eyes of those around him. invisibility In the rest of the novel, he is told he is to give a speach to a group of white people, but instead participates in thewhere he fights for their entertainment and is then when attempting to recieve money for his efforts. Later, he gets kicked out of college for unwillingly allowing the founder to talk to Jim Trueblood- a man who raped his daughter. Next, the is promised job recomendations by the school when he moves to New York, but the letters tell the prestigous businessmento hire him instead. not Instead, he works at a factory and becomes victim of an accident that lands him in a hospital- where he is trapped and put through painful cures that repress his emotions and memory. Later, he makes a speach in Harlem where an old couple is getting evicted, which lands him a spot in - an organization dedicated to the Civil Rights movement. "Battle Royale" shocked "The Brotherhood" At the end of the novel, he nearly gets hung by the people the Brotherhood didn't protect, and falls into a sewer. Search for Identity Racism Sin The can often lead us to attempt to change and repress our true selves in order to become who we think we should be. Acts of may distrupt the lives and emotions of those who commit them. has the effect of isolating people from civilization, reality, and honesty. Ellison explores this idea throughout the novel, and the main character even attempts to explain this. However, he also states that he cannot because he is an Invisible Man. "I thinks and thinks, until I thinks my brain go'n bust, 'bout how I'm guilty and how I ain't guilty. I don't eat nothing and I don't drink nothin' and caint sleep at night...I sings me some blues that night ain't never been sang before(66). "This was a new phase, I realized, a new beginning, and I would have to take that part of myself that looked on with remote eyes and keep it always at the distance of the campus, the hospital machine, the battle royal -all now far behind...Whatever I was, I knew that I'd have to keep it pressed down(335). This displays our tendency to look in the past when we are attempting to who we are, and where we belong. Trueblood's sin with his daughterresults in him having conflicting emotions and feeling extreme guiltand anxiety. The unnamed narrator attempts to separate his old self from his new self because he doesn't know who he is, and tries to be what he is expected to. "I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids -and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me"(3).